Null limits of generalised Bonnor-Swaminarayan solutions (Q5932489)

The part I of this paper is an introduction. In part II the Bonnor-Swaminarayan solutions which contain five arbitrary constants are given. In part III the Bičak-Hoenselaers-Schmidt solutions are given and the case of the multipole particles is investigated. In part IV the limiting cases of the above metrics are studied. The resulting space-times represent the spherical impulsive gravitational waves with snapping or expanding cosmic strings. A new solution for a snapping cosmic string of finite length is presented.